Big Winners and Big Losers: The 4 Secrets of Long-Term Business Success and Failure

Chapter 12. Diffuseness

Big losers were too diffuse to deepen, enlarge, or extend the positions they occupied. (See Table 12.1.) They did not establish clear connections among disparate business units, stick to long-term merger or acquisition plans, and create common goals among diverse divisions. They emphasized research and development (R&D), which was of little use to their customers or to the promising growth markets to which their customers were devoted. Their globalization was meant to overcome domestic inadequacies, but it only bred additional problems with which they did not cope well. Figure 12.1 summarizes lessons learned from big losers with regard to their diffuseness. For each lesson in Figure 12.1, I provide examples of the traits ...